A blush and a meme
Jan. 25th, 2006 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestGot my driving licence back today, with three points added, ending a pristine almost-twenty-year run.
92mph down the M4 to Bristol. Oops.
*blushes*
And now, because I think I've worked out ten things - and I dunno if these are actually ten things that would help anyone identify a story as being By Me or not - the How To Tell It's A Story By Pen meme.
1. It's a happy story. Okay, I have written a handful of more angsty fics, but the vast majority of my stuff is set in an essentially pleasant world wherein things work out well.
2. In the same vein, my characters are basically innocent and well-intentioned. I'm not good with darkness.
3. It's in third person and past tense. I very rarely write either in present tense or from another POV.
4. It's not a very long story. My longest *ever* (apart from the romance novels, which are not for public viewing!) is around 15,000 words. I think my attention span is too short.
5. Lots (and lots) of adjectives and adverbs. I'm trying to cut down, but... And yet, while there are adverbs and adjectives, there is a definite lack of sensual description. I just don't seem to be able to create that kind of rich, palpable detail.
6. I'm not big on similes/metaphors, but every so often I throw one in because the rhythm of the prose seems to require one. My, that sounds pompous. I have no idea how I decide this.
7. I do my best to ring the changes with dialogue tags. Mostly there'll be a "said", often with qualifying adverb; sometimes it's "suggested" or "muttered", etc; sometimes there isn't a tag at all, but an insert of an action instead. I have a sneaking suspicion that my writing style is influenced by far too much Georgette Heyer at an impressionable age, though I have not as yet used "he ejaculated" as a dialogue tag. But you never know!
8. Over-use of em-dashes.
9. Despite my efforts, it's probably told in an indefinably British way. Shrug. I'm about as English as a person can be.
10. It ends with a one-line payoff. I like to 'sign' stories that way.
92mph down the M4 to Bristol. Oops.
*blushes*
And now, because I think I've worked out ten things - and I dunno if these are actually ten things that would help anyone identify a story as being By Me or not - the How To Tell It's A Story By Pen meme.
1. It's a happy story. Okay, I have written a handful of more angsty fics, but the vast majority of my stuff is set in an essentially pleasant world wherein things work out well.
2. In the same vein, my characters are basically innocent and well-intentioned. I'm not good with darkness.
3. It's in third person and past tense. I very rarely write either in present tense or from another POV.
4. It's not a very long story. My longest *ever* (apart from the romance novels, which are not for public viewing!) is around 15,000 words. I think my attention span is too short.
5. Lots (and lots) of adjectives and adverbs. I'm trying to cut down, but... And yet, while there are adverbs and adjectives, there is a definite lack of sensual description. I just don't seem to be able to create that kind of rich, palpable detail.
6. I'm not big on similes/metaphors, but every so often I throw one in because the rhythm of the prose seems to require one. My, that sounds pompous. I have no idea how I decide this.
7. I do my best to ring the changes with dialogue tags. Mostly there'll be a "said", often with qualifying adverb; sometimes it's "suggested" or "muttered", etc; sometimes there isn't a tag at all, but an insert of an action instead. I have a sneaking suspicion that my writing style is influenced by far too much Georgette Heyer at an impressionable age, though I have not as yet used "he ejaculated" as a dialogue tag. But you never know!
8. Over-use of em-dashes.
9. Despite my efforts, it's probably told in an indefinably British way. Shrug. I'm about as English as a person can be.
10. It ends with a one-line payoff. I like to 'sign' stories that way.
